Some really important stuff to come on this site later in the week, so let’s crack on with this. First things first – what the hell are Surrey doing in third?

They beat Warwickshire

It’s not really happened for Warwickshire so far this year – and this with Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott playing nearly every match as well. Against Surrey, they cobbled together 247 in their first innings, which was fine because Surrey had made much the same, but then their cobbling skills departed and they were bowled out for 169 in the second dig. Surrey had made 390 in the meantime so that was nowhere near enough.

Sam Curran took 5-42 in Warwickshire’s first innings and made 62 in Surrey’s second. It was all a bit ‘everyone chipping in’ other than that.

Middlesex beat Durham

At Lord’s as well, which is quite unusual this season. Durham were oddly piss-poor and lost by an innings. Ollie Rayner took nine wickets, which is more than handy. Nicks Gubbins and Compton made hundreds.

Yorkshire drew with Lancashire

And in all honesty were on the receiving end insofar as that’s possible in a draw. The alphabet-straddling AZ Lees made a hundred but was comprehensively outdone by his Lancastrian opposite number, Haseeb Hameed, who made two. The lad’s obviously going to play for England at some point, but when? He wouldn’t be the first batsman to follow up a cracking debut season with a shonky second one.

Hampshire beat Nottinghamshire

Bad news for Notts who are now somehow bottom. They seem to have a lot of very good players who aren’t playing particularly well. Brad Wheal took six wickets for Hampshire in the fourth innings. He’s one of them Saffers with a British passport, like everyone else in county cricket.

6 Appeals

To be fair on Ollie Rayner viz his nationality, his is a military family which happened to be based in Germany when he was born. That doesn’t make him “German with a British passport”.

Not that such distinctions matter much to me, but daddy Rayner is often seen at Middlesex matches with a glass in his hand – he has always seemed placid enough to me, but the “aren’t you German?” question might turn him.

To be fair on Lord’s, KC, this was the first cc match at Lord’s to get much beyond 2.5 days of cricket.

Strangely, though, the more northerly pitch used for the Durham match – in years gone by the dead end of the strip – seemed to be doing more than the once-juicier southern end. Bit of bounce too, which was Ollie Rayner’s secret weapon in my view – just a little lateral movement – so I think he’d struggle going up a level in the subcontinent, Balladeer.

Nice to see the rightful heirs apparent still currently at the top of that all-important table. It’s “dare to dream” time, albeit not “expect” time.

Ho hum. I did wonder why, with his figures and being of prime spinning age, he’s never been talked about as an English spinner (the ‘doesn’t spin it much’ argument didn’t seem to make much sense when Moe Ali spins it loads with debatable amounts to show for it). Sounds like it’s a ‘helpful-in-the-right-way pitches’ argument.